Chp7 Page 10
He has a way with words that I am always terrified are wrong because I don’t speak that language. But! I do my best, and if they’re horrifically dumb hopefully someone will correct. <:D
Not just me, this amazingly exciting calendar about webcomic mans also contains illustrations from EK Weaver of TJ and Amal, Kelly Turnbull of Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, Ash G of Monster’s Garden, Tish Doolin of Modus Operandi, and so many more!
I drew the month of June!
WOOT! LOVELY ARTWORK ON THE EXPRESSIONS!
No, your german is correct. Ow, I love this page ^^
Damn, my b-day is in June… That’s the only signal I needed to buy that goddam calendar!
Besides, I must say that your art keeps being awesome. Your expressions fascinate me and your lighwork is just outstanding. My most sincere congrats, mister. You rock.
“Excuse (me/us/him?) please, when I (something), but…”
I’m clearly not an expert, but it seems like perfectly good German to me. Also: Updatesss woo!
Don’t worry, i am german and can assure you that the german featured in your comic so far is entirely correct. You should be more confident!
Phew! Of course I did have to be corrected a few times, but that’s ok, glad the end result is working out.
“He has a way with words that I am always terrified are wrong because I don’t speak that language. But! I do my best, and if they’re horrifically dumb hopefully someone will correct. <:D"
You got it correct. Very correct actually, that's a rather formal and polite style of german, perfect for old Orville.
Btw, this situation makes me think of a song… Sympathy for the Orville by "The Rolling Schteins" ;)
Actually the polite speech doesn’t match the old man’s expression, so I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to the situation, but the sentence itself is technically correct, yes.
Maybe it’s just me, but he doesn’t actually look sorry for interrupting, more like he’s rudely butting in, so I might write it as “Entschuldige die Störung , aber…”.
On that note… is he supposed to say “sorry for the disturbance” or “sorry for interrupting” ?
Though this is a technicality that even professionally translated works won’t get right these days, as they are translations of raw text, without context and circumstances.
To me those are important because it’s how I understand languages I didn’t grow up with, didn’t properly learn in school, like English, or don’t actually know (but have a slight grasp of), so when I see things translated “wrong” (note the quotation marks) in my main languages it feels off to me.
I remember a time when professional translations were done right, but that requires time and therefore costs money. So instead of wasting funds by having the translator understand the material, we’ll just give him the plain text to translate.
Damn i started ranting, sorry :P
Beeing polite doesn’t necessarily mean nice or benelevolent. Depending on the context the meaning of a sentence can change drastically, as for example with irony or sarcasm. Beeing overly polite is a form of sarcasm and can even be a barely concealed threat. The emphasis in this case is on the last word after the comma which actually changes the meaning of the rather polite excuse Orville is giving. “Please excuse me for interrupting, BUT [insert possibly horrible horrible things here].
As for professional translations – if you want a good translation hire an individual not an agency. And stay away from technical translators if you don’t want it to sound like a manual for your coffee machine.
I am definitely enjoying these comments, though, very interesting! These and the chain above. I’ll just sit back and absorb if you don’t mind.
But yeah, it was intended as menacing politeness.
Actually, Becky is a guy ;)
Yeah, you usually start learning languages in an overly correct and polite manner. But talking like that sounds rather weird for a native speaker. I only wanted to make clear that that kind of very polite speaking isn’t used that often anymore, but fits the person and situation Becky uses it for very nicely. Think “aggressive politeness” with a hint of sarcasm. At least that’s how I read it, other germans might disagree.
“I’m fairly sure our author is a female.”
Check again. Quoting the comic info section: “Hello there, I’m Dirk Grundy. I’m a native Texan, I own like twelve guns. I’m 45 and I love cats. My gender identity is an inert carbon lump.”
heeeeeeeeeey let’s nip this awkward gender thing in the bud right now I am non binary, thank you.
I am ‘a human’. :)
Better be human! Don’t want no alien, coming over here, into our webs! and providing us decent entertainment, putting potential HUMAN artists out of a job!
Apologies if you’ve answered this question a bajillion times and I missed it, but do you most frequently prefer to go by Beckey or Dirk? Or is either generally fine?
Either. They’re both nicknames anyway, haha.
my twitter is p. boring no one should ever follow it imo
Regardless of whether its good german or otherwise, I feel left in the dark on this one XD haha
In other news, Lupin’s been fun to watch so far =D gonna keep lookin up what I can! I saw they released a live action movie only a little while ago too which now I’m lookin forward to XD along with the Rurouni Kenshin film! So much to seeeeee
It translates to “Please excuse me if I’ve disturbed you but…”
No, not quite.
It translates to “Please excuse me for interrupting, but…” or “I apologize for the interruption, but…” especially in that context. He is interrupting them. Disturbing them would imply that they had been aware of his presense before, which obviously wasn’t the case.
I think you have inadvertently wandered into “false friends” territory here. The noun “die Störung” in German does not carry an emotional connotation. It can be translated as “interruption, disruption, disturbance (i.e. in weather pattern)”.
But you went from the noun to a verb in your translation, which changes things.
You may be confusing
1) “to interrupt s.o.” = “jemanden stören” in the sense of bothering, troubling or distracting them.
2) “to disturb s.o.” = “jemanden verstören / jemanden beunruhigen” in the sense of perturbing or unsettling them.
There is no noun “die Verstörung” in German. There is a noun “die Verstörtheit”, meaning someone’s emotional state of being visibly distraught, perturbed, scared or acting deranged (in the sense of being traumatized, not in the sense of being mentally ill).
I especially love the abject, traumatised, terror in that last panel
nothing is more terrifying than a guy who can make you do that “stop hitting yourself” thing without even touching you
On top of having only just realized his little leash trick isn’t working any more…
As a native German speaker, I really enjoyed that last panel. It reminded me a lot of the old James Bond movies, where the evil genius always had flawless conversational skills. I also appreciated the formal style which creates an impression of supremacy that really gave me goosebumps. A formal apology which isn’t meant as such in the slightest… beautiful. A+ for that, Mr. Grundy. It is on par with Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. More of it!